"Look here, Mother," she said firmly. "I want to talk this out with you and tell you all my plans; you have a right to know, and, besides, I shall need your help. I want to take a scholarship at Cambridge in the autumn, if I can. I shall only have my twenty-five pounds a year, I know, because Milly's share you'll need for yourself, but Elizabeth has some money put by, and she's offered to let me borrow from her until I can earn something. I'm hoping that if it's not too late, I might manage to hang out for a medical degree, but even if that's impossible I ought to find some sort of work if I do well at college. And then there's another thing." She hesitated for a moment but plunged on. "If you had a tiny place of your own it would cost much less, as I've always told you. Say just two or three comfortable rooms, for, of course, there wouldn't be money enough for you to keep up a flat for the two of us; but that wouldn't matter, because Elizabeth's got a flat of her own in London, and could always put me up when I was there. If you were in London I should feel so much happier about it all; I could look after you better, don't you see? We could see so much more of each other; and then if you were ill, or anything--and another thing is that you'd have a little more money to spend. You could go and stay with people; you might even be able to go abroad in the winter sometimes. Dearest, you do understand, don't you?" Mrs. Ogden was silent. She had turned rather pale, but when she spoke her voice was quite gentle. "I'm trying to understand, my dear," she said. "Let's see if I've got it right. You say you mean to take your own money and go up to Cambridge in the autumn. I suppose you'll stay there the usual time, and then continue your studies at a hospital or some place; that's what they do, don't they? Some day you hope to become a doctor, or if that fails to find some other paid work, in order to be free to live away from me. You mean to break up our home, if you can, and to take me to London as a peace offering to your conscience, and when I'm there you hope to have the time to run in and see me occasionally. I'm right, aren't I; it would be only occasionally? For between your work and Elizabeth your time would be pretty well taken up." Joan made a sound of protest.